


Threads that bind, threads that unravel.

by CureIcy, Eye_reArts



Series: All is Within Their Gaze [5]
Category: The Eye and its Children: What Lurks in the Dark
Genre: Body Horror, Cryptids, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:23:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CureIcy/pseuds/CureIcy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eye_reArts/pseuds/Eye_reArts
Summary: She reached out, hoping to touch a thread, but got caught in the tangle and unwound herself.
Series: All is Within Their Gaze [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732258
Kudos: 1
Collections: Tales of the Eyes





	Threads that bind, threads that unravel.

She’s wandering when she finds it, and the wandering is quite pleasant, a few snippets of one-sided conversation with jaded cashiers and the pleasant weight of money to spend in her pocket. It’s a curiosity shop, and she thinks the title is quite apt, since she likes these little places that satisfy her curiosity.

Never mind the gazes at her back; she’s never been one to care about such things. She sets down one well-loved book and lets her feet carry her to a strange little marionette, eyes hidden in the shadows of its hair. It’s an odd little thing, and she wonders who made it. Even when its eyes are visible, she still gets a very strange impression from it. It’s difficult to describe, and maybe that’s what possesses her to reach out and touch its string but she hasn’t touched it yet and the moment grows closer and closer, time stretching until--

\--it breaks with a snap and a gasp and something somewhere breathes in sharply but there’s nowhere for the breath to go, and with that snap, goes the world around her.

The breath never stops, thrown out into the void in an endless scream that knows not where to go and ricochets off the walls that only exist in her mind.

They’re slipping through her fingers, and she sees that her fingers are nothing, she can see the glass behind them. Streams of color flow where the blood should be, and she is unraveling piece by piece, head thrown back and eyes wide open like they will never close again. She sees the strings so clearly now, sees herself held and reflected. She was never in control, never, and she can only watch, unable to reach out and hold her own face.

It stares into her with her own eyes, and she sees nothing.

She does not want to be found, but she is ripped open by a smile that can’t be forgotten.

Gossamer wires slice her apart and insert themselves deeper and deeper until they pierce her marrow and then beyond. They’re not leaving. They won’t leave, can’t leave until they go deeper, and her eyes are wide open but now they ascend, and her soul pours out of the empty sockets and fills the ocean, merging with something so much greater than her own self.

She is lost when it reaches for her, drying her tear with an incomprehensible claw. Her eyes close. She knows now. She is ready.

Suddenly, she's jerked back into being, and her hands return to her sides. The mirror unshatters, and life resumes as though nothing happened. But she can still hear the breathing, and the cracks in her eyes are louder than anything her ears see.

Something falls on her head, and it takes her a moment to realize she has a head again. Her body is hers, only as much as it can ever be, but she sees in the mirror that it will never be the same.

She is marked.


End file.
